In order to erect structures such as buildings, scaffoldings are usually required to be erected prior to any other work carried out on the building itself.
People who erect scaffoldings are known in the art as scaffolders and are required to erect such scaffolds in conditions that, by necessity, place them at risk of falling from a relatively high elevation during the course of their work.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a safety apparatus for the erection of structures, which provides safety to users before they are placed at risk.
2. Description of the Related Art
Numerous types of safety apparatus exist to prevent such occurrences, such as described in United Kingdom Patent 2 311 554. However, such systems require the scaffolder to first escalate the scaffold, irrespective of its height without the benefit of being safely attached to any safety apparatus, and only being able to anchor himself to said safety apparatus once he has reached his area of work.
Such a problem is encountered both at the time of climbing onto the scaffold, for instance at the beginning of the working day and, subsequently, also at the time of coming off the scaffold, for instance at the end of the working day. Moreover, each time a higher level of scaffolding requires erecting, scaffolders are hence required to climb up the scaffolding and existing apparatus do not allow them to do so whilst benefiting from being safely attached to any safety apparatus. Indeed, a scaffolder must first release his anchor from said safety apparatus, then climb up to the new level of scaffolding whereafter he ran secure the existing apparatus in place, said scaffolder being constantly at risk of falling. Only then can he and his co-workers anchor to said safety apparatus.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a safety apparatus for the erection of structures, comprising a first substantially vertical support; a second substantially vertical support; and a supporting cable extending between said first and second supports, wherein said vertical supports are configured to be adjustable in length and each includes a first fixing means and a second fixing means such that the length of a support may be adjusted by releasing said first fixing means and then refixing said first fixing means after said adjustment has been made. The invention therefore provides a means for providing constant safety to said scaffolder such that he is constantly tethered to said safety apparatus whilst scaling and erecting scaffoldings, independently of the height that said scaffold must be erected to:
According to a second aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of erecting safety apparatus during the assembly of a structure, comprising the steps of attaching the first substantially vertical support to said structure; attaching the second substantially vertical support to said structure; extending a cable between said first and second supports and attaching a safety harness to said cable, wherein said vertical supports are configured to be adjustable in length and each includes a first fixing means and a second fixing means such that the length of a support may be adjusted by releasing said first fixing means and then refixing said fixing means after said adjustment.
The invention will now be described by way of example only with reference to the following drawings.